At this point, more than eight hundred miles out from the Missouri, a custom of unknown age seemed to have decreed a pause.  The great rock was an unmistakable landmark, and time out of mind had been a register of the wilderness.  It carried hundreds of names, including every prominent one ever known in the days of fur trade or the new day of the wagon trains.  It became known as a resting place; indeed, many rested there forever, and never saw the soil of Oregon.  Many an emigrant woman, sick well-nigh to death, held out so that she might be buried among the many other graves that clustered there.  So, she felt, she had the final company of her kind.  And to those weak or faint of heart the news that this was not halfway across often smote with despair and death, and they, too, laid themselves down here by the road to Oregon.

But here also were many scenes of cheer.  By this time the new life of the trail had been taken on, rude and simple.  Frolics were promised when the wagons should reach the Rock.  Neighbors made reunions there.  Weddings, as well as burials, were postponed till the train got to Independence Rock.

Here then, a sad-faced girl, true to her promise and true to some strange philosophy of her own devising, was to become the wife of a suitor whose persistency had brought him little comfort beyond the wedding date.  All the train knew that Molly Wingate Was to be married there to Sam Woodhull, now restored to trust and authority.  Some said it was a good match, others shook their heads, liking well to see a maid either blush or smile in such case as Molly’s whereas she did neither.

At all events, Mrs. Wingate was two days baking cakes at the train stops.  Friends got together little presents for the bride.  Jed, Molly’s brother, himself a fiddler of parts, organized an orchestra of a dozen pieces.  The Rev. Henry Doak, a Baptist divine of much nuptial diligence en route, made ready his best coat.  They came into camp.  In the open spaces of the valley hundreds of wagons were scattered, each to send representatives to Molly Wingate’s wedding.  Some insisted that the ceremony should be performed on the top of the Rock itself, so that no touch of romance should lack.

Then approached the very hour—­ten of the night, after duties of the day were done.  A canopy was spread for the ceremony.  A central camp fire set the place for the wedding feast.  Within a half hour the bride would emerge from the secrecy of her wagon to meet at the canopy under the Rock the impatient groom, already clad in his best, already giving largess to the riotous musicians, who now attuned instruments, now broke out into rude jests or pertinent song.

But Molly Wingate did not appear, nor her father, nor her mother.  A hush fell on the rude assemblage.  The minister of the gospel departed to the Wingate encampment to learn the cause of the delay.  He found Jesse Wingate irate to open wrath, the girl’s mother stony calm, the girl herself white but resolute.